The Iran nuclear deal, if successfully implemented, lies at the heart of Barack Obama’s vision for a new relationship between the United States and the Middle East, one that could transform the strategic order that has guided the region since the end of the Cold War.
Obama came into office with the goal of “right-sizing” the US posture in the region after his predecessor’s disastrous attempt to impose a democratic order in Iraq through regime change and occupation. The Iraq war led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, sectarian bloodletting, majoritarian rule, unprecedented Iranian influence and, of course, the seeds that would grow into today’s biggest global security threat – ISIL.
Rather than continue to drain US coffers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama sought to pursue a “pivot” to East Asia, where rival China was stamping its dominance, and away from the high costs and low returns of an overstretched role in the Middle East.
The quickly declining American reliance on Gulf oil imports was another important factor in the White House’s strategic assessment. The failures of the Arab Spring uprisings, too, played a role. The US administration differed sharply with its traditional allies in the Gulf and Israel over the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, protest movements elsewhere in the region, societal reform and the role of Islamists in politics.
For the first time, the US and its Arab allies’ perceived interests were at odds. A divergence in values was even more pronounced. As a result, Washington’s ability to leverage its security commitments to influence their policies faltered as it drifted away from its old allies’ strategic outlook.
Obama bet that the US could best begin to rebalance itself in the Middle East by forging a deal with Iran over its disputed nuclear programme that would block its path to the bomb – the primary global security threat emanating from the region – and forestall a possible regional war.
The lifting of sanctions, in exchange, would begin integrating Iran for the first time since 1979 into the regional order – an order whose organising principle under the US had been to contain Tehran.
Obama’s strategic rationale held that a non-nuclear Iran would pose less of a threat to US allies and that an Iran integrated into the region would create a stabilising balance of power as well as economic incentives for Tehran and its chief rivals in the Gulf to begin the process of rapprochement.
This potential upending of the traditional order underwritten by the US was, and remains, deeply unsettling for Washington’s allies who believe that this is naive at best and an abandonment at the worst.
After a July deal between Iran and world powers put unprecedented limits on Tehran’s ability to enrich for over a decade, Iran will receive incremental sanctions relief during the implementation phase expected to begin in the new year.
The US plans to keep a sizable military presence in the Gulf to support its pared down core interests: protect allies from external threats like Iran, secure the flow of oil, carry out counter-terrorism operations and help contain ISIL. The US now expects its Gulf allies to carry much more of the load of these tasks themselves.
In the longer term, a political resolution to the war in Syria, the shared threat of ISIL and growing economic links may ultimately lead to a modus vivendi between the Gulf states and Iran, but that is far from certain and perhaps unlikely.
Obama’s successor may deliver on campaign promises to be more aggressive in the fight against ISIL in Iraq and Syria. But if the Iran deal successfully comes into effect, the key question looming over the next president’s Middle East policy will be whether they see the region and the American place in it the same way as Obama or whether they will revert to a more involved role.
Taimur Khan is a foreign correspondent at The National.
